The Interocitor

Propositions: No on both

There are only two state ballot propositions on the June ballot. One is beyond horrid, the other just misguided.

Prop 82, which would take tax revenue that would, if imposed, be better spent for nearly anything else, and give it to people who have yet to spend the last money their group raised on the promised programs. What they seem to have spent int on is PR for themselves and for their next initiative (this one). There are more pressing needs than to set up a state monopoly on preschools. Roads, subways, power plants, police, fire, trauma centers and throwing the money in a ditch would be better uses. See my in-depth rant on the Meathead Initiative. Even the LA Times and many Democrats (but I repeat myself) find this thing hard to stomach.

Prop 81 would raise a 600 million dollar bond to expand libraries in an era where the demand for library services is dwindling. This is on top of the $350 million bond approved in 2000. Just went to my 30th college reunion and found that the university is consolidating libraries as most students prefer electronic research. Whole floors are being set aside for other purposes. I'd think that the public libraries should consider similar methods to provide funds for better, but fewer libraries. In any event, there are more pressing needs for any bonds the state might issue (roads, subways, power plants, police, fire...). At least this isn't actively harmful.

By the way, I note that the ballot summary argument against Prop 81 is one of the worst I've ever seen, and can only help it pass. It's also strange that it has nothing to do with the official ballot argument. Isn't a summary supposed to, well, summarize? But no, while the ballot argument (pages 12 & 13 of the mailing) is well-written and to the point (too much money, too many bonds, and why?), the summary (page 8) is a non-sequitur rant about illegal aliens. Unbelievable. Or not.

Bubble?

Looking at the inflation-adjusted oil price chart, I was struck by how much the current run-up looks like the Nasdaq circa 1999. How come no one is talking about an oil futures bubble? Just asking.

Shameful

The 9th Circuit believes that school authorities can bar a student from wearing a t-shirt that says "homosexuality is shameful", even if it is a protest against a pro-gay event on campus that day.

Question: How would this be different from wearing a "eating meat is shameful" t-shirt to a school barbecue?

Does it solely reset on the minority status of the offended party? Have group rights gone so far that, while all groups are equal, some groups are more equal than others?

Illegal Immigration: Solved!

It's not about immigration, they say. It's about illegal immigration. ILLEGAL! It's about sovereignty. It's about children being born as citizens to illegals. It's about illegals getting welfare. It's about citizenship meaning something. It's NOT NOT NOT about the immigrants themselves, their religion, culture, race or language nor is it about being against immigration per se. "No, no, a thousand times no", I hear. I happen to agree with most of these official compaints (except I find the illegals-on-welfare argument weak).

So, here's a solution that solves all these concerns, assuming they're the real ones:

• All illegal immigration is a felony. All illegal immigrants shall be deported after a year and a day in a low-security federal prison camp. All currently illegal residents have 1 month to leave.


• A sizable number of official immigration entry points will be created, some at airports, some at border crossings, or other normal points of entry.


• Anyone who comes to an entry point with a $500 per person processing fee, does not have infectious disease, and has no serious criminal record will be admitted as a legal resident. No numerical or time limits shall be imposed.


• No means-tested federally-funded government benefit shall be granted to any such person until they have attained US citizenship.


• No person born in the United states shall be considered a native-born citizen unless the mother is legally resident.


• No person shall be naturalized unless they can converse in English.

There, solved. Unless, of course, there are issues that are other than sovereignty or legality.

Note that the "anyone can come if they ask permission" rule is hardly new to the USA. Nearly all my Irish and German ancestors used it, so I've got to think it's a pretty good one.

On the other hand, I don't believe a word of it. Most of the oppostion is about immigration, legal or not. It is about race, religion, language, culture. It's about jobs or wages or crowding or other fears. If it were all legal, many would still be opposed. In this, it's the same crap they threw at my ancestors (and theirs for the most part), and the country would be a much poorer place if they had won then.

Or now.

Reminder

"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

The Meathead Initiative

Probably the worst California initiative since Big Green, Rob Reiner's "free" preschool initiative (Prop 82) simply emanates harm in every direction. It is the ballot equivalent of the crack addict who destroys your dashboard to get a radio he exchanges for a $10 hit. Except in this case the hit is bunk.

What the initiative does:

• Increases the maximum income tax rate by more than a percent on high earners. This might not seem so bad until you realize that there is no cap gains treatment in California and tax hikes at the high end increase the likelihood that large one-time or elective cap gains will be exercised during a year of exile to, say, Washington State, leaving California with nothing. This happens enough now.


• Guarantees a year of half-day preschool to every four-year-old, starting in 2012 or so, regardless of family income. So, don't expect this for your kid. Nor should you think of this as an anti-poverty program, no matter how Reiner spins it. It will cost about $50,000 for each poor kid in preschool, given a child poverty rate of 10%.


• For the first 5 years or so, all the money is to be spent on setup. Building neighborhood preschools (no doubt through eminent domain) to replace the private preschools we already have. Developing programs and other "consultant" stuff; just the thing we need more of. No doubt to the same high ethical standards Rob Reiner brought to First 5 -- which has yet to spend meaningful money on whatever it was that his last initiative promised back in the 90's. Now we know what "First 5" really means!


• It requires that all preschools under this program be run by the state Department of Education and/or local school districts. You know, the folks who have done such a bang-up job with K-12. Especially in those areas with poor children.


• It requires that all preschool teachers have college degrees and be certified, at a time when K-12 teaching jobs are going unfilled. So, say goodbye to all of those private preschool teachers; they aren't qualified even if they've been doing this for 20 years.


• To the degree that people prefer free preschools to good preschools, it will devastate the private preschool business. Instead of thriving diversity and competition for students, we have one more year of one-size-fits-all, with the attendant screaming over what will be taught.


• It won't do any good in the long run. For kids of average means (e.g. literate parents), any advantage due to preschooling evaporates by grade 3 -- no doubt due to the mind-numbing mediocrity of public elementary schools. It's unknown whether public preschools run by the NEA will do even that much good.


• None of the tax increase will go toward bring down the deficit, or funding real schools, or paying for other needed programs such as roads and subways. You want to do that, you need to raise taxes even further -- something some Prop 82 backers are quite ready to do.

But don't take my nutbar right-wing word for it. Go ask ultraliberal John Burton what he thinks. Even the LA Times is against Prop 82.

Maybe he should have joined the Taliban

It seems that the US State Department will admit former Taliban officials on student visas to study at Yale, but won't admit Iraqis who've worked with the Coalition. The NYT reports on a 2004 Olympic athlete who defied the jihadists to box for Iraq. Now he wants to come and study in the US, has a sponsor and a school lined up, but can't come in.

Then again, I shouldn't be surprised -- last time I went through Customs there were 5 lines for foreigners and one for US residents. Only in America.